Just Ask: What's the story behind the plaque missing from the terrace off South Branch Parkway?

Photo by Patrick Johnson / The RepublicanThis is a view of the old terrace off South Branch Parkway that was hidden by trees until last year's tornado cleared away the overgrowth.

Question: On a section of South Branch Parkway where the tornado went through and uprooted all the trees, there’s a stone terrace overlooking Veterans Golf Course that few people knew was there.

There’s a large stone that looked like it had a plaque on it, but the plaque is gone.

Any idea what this was?

–Al C., Springfield

Answer: The lookout and terrace appears to be left over from a walking trail that was constructed in the early 1930s under the federal Works Progress Administration. But we were unable to pin down the exact date of construction or what was on the missing plaque.

The trail from Plumtree Road to Parker Street through an area of land along the South Branch Tributary of the Mill River was donated to the city in 1932 by E. Marshal Burt of East Longmeadow and his wife in December of that year. The 20-acre parcel was described as being between Plumtree Road on the north side of the tributary and Allen Street. The property is not listed among city parks overseen by the city Parks and Recreation Department, but an old map of Springfield that hangs by my desk at The Republican notes “South Branch Park” in that same area as this lookout and terrace.

Sixteen Acres today is a heavily developed suburban part of Springfield, but in the full range of the city’s history, that’s a relatively recent development. The South Branch Parkway, the road connecting Bradley Road and Parker Street, had not yet been constructed, nor had Veterans Golf Course.

As local historian Frances Gagnon noted when contacted for this question, when she was a little girl in Indian Orchard 60 years ago, Sixteen Acres was practically a great wilderness. Aside from some blueberry fields, a scattering of houses and a pig farm, “there was very little out there in that part of the city,” she said.